


next year in jerusalem

by Moriwen



Series: glowfic prompt fills [6]
Category: Glowfic and Related Works
Genre: Gen, Holocaust, Pesach | Passover, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 13:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14190135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moriwen/pseuds/Moriwen
Summary: Jean and Zari and Passover, through the years.





	next year in jerusalem

**April 23 rd, 1940**

_What are the testimonies, the statutes, and the laws that G-d, our G-d, has commanded to you?_

There's never any argument over Jean being at the Seder table. Zahara's parents may never have quite accepted him as _her brother,_ but they're hardly going to turn him away on Passover; so he's jammed in between Isaïe and Myriam, amiably making conversation with her father's coworker (across from him) and her mother's brother (clearing away dishes).

Lisette pours wine; Papa recites over it; Zahara drinks, and tries not to make a face. (Jean does a _much_ better job at it, but he still signs a complaint to her; she rolls her eyes, and kicks him under the table.)

Stealing the afikomen is Jean's job -- no one's ever caught him at it, and by now they _try._ The four questions are Isaïe's, the little cousin being still too little to stumble through them; he grumbles about still qualifying as the baby of the family, but sings his way through the questions in his lovely clear voice nonetheless. Zahara answers, grateful _she_ doesn't have to sing: _we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the L-rd, our G-d, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm...._

Two weeks and three days later, Germany invades.

 

* * *

 

  **April 12 th, 1941**

_What is this service of yours?_

Flour is rationed. Oil is rationed. Eggs are rationed.

Jean brings the wine, this year, and no one asks too many questions about whether it's kosher. No one asks too many questions about where he got it, either. They know better than to ask too many questions about anything Jean and Zahara do, these days. Safer not to know.

(It's _good_ wine. Better than they've had any Passover before. Zahara doesn't know who Jean killed to get it, but she suspects it was someone.)

Papa's coworker wasn't invited this year. Mama's brother and his wife and the little cousin are absent, too, holding their seder somewhere in America. It should leave the table feeling empty -- but they're all packed in anyway, just around a smaller table in a smaller room, with the shutters closed.

Lisette recites the ten plagues, from the rivers running with blood to the death of the first-born. Zahara watches Jean the whole time. His face is pleasant, but when he puts his hand to his glass to remove a drop for each plague, his finger never touches the wine.

 

* * *

 

  **April 2 nd, 1942**

_What is this celebration about?_

Only the two of them, this year, and it breaks Zahara's heart, but it's safer, if anything can be safer -- she's doing dangerous things, these days, and her parents can't be known to associate with her. So Jean asks her, with a bitter twist in his smile, _why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables, but on this night we eat bitter herbs?_ , and they take turns reciting the questions of the four sons.

(She still doesn't see Jean steal the afikomen. She doesn't know how he does it.)

They hold hands while they sing _Dayenu,_ and Zahara doesn't know who's clinging to whom. _If He had brought us out of Egypt, but not executed justice on the Egyptians -- if He had executed justice on the Egyptians, but not on their gods -- if He had given me my brother, but not the rest of my family -- please, please, just that, that would be enough..._

 

* * *

 

  **April 20 th, 1943**  
_the one who knows not how to ask_

"Think you've had enough," the bartender says, dubiously, and Jean snarls at him in French before remembering which language to use -- _not four yet, give me my fourth damn drink --_ just because he'd been drunk already when he came in didn't mean he's going to do it _wrong._

Well. Wronger than he's already doing it.

“Finish the one you  _ have _ ,” the man tries again, with increasing exasperation, gesturing to the untouched cup by Jean’s elbow. Jean hisses through his teeth in reply, and shoves more money at him.

They throw him out, eventually, though he's had rather more than four cups by then. Jean lies sprawled on his back and the pavement, and screams in French at a cloudless sky.

 

_Pour out your wrath on the nations_

_that do not acknowledge you,_

_on the kingdoms_

_that do not call on your name;_

 

_for they have devoured Jacob_

_and devastated his homeland._

 

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of people requested Jean & Zari fic, so here, have some suffering.


End file.
